How do I know the council of 754 was not ecumenical? How do I know 1 Clement is not scripture? Because the Spirit does not witness to His Church that it is so. You see, we can both talk about the witness of the Spirit, but when you talk about it, it's just your opinion. When I talk about it, it is the consensus of the people of God. What more do I need? That's 300 million times as good an authority as you have presented, which is 300 million orthodox Christians divided by one of you.
I can add other reasons, but it hardly ought be necessary:
1) There are no great iconoclastic fathers of the Church. I don't agree with your assessment that there is any lack of Fathers speaking for icons. Every Father speaking for icons, and without any objection in the Church until the 7th century, is an indication there was no controversy. Priests and bishops were reading Gregory of Nazianz, Basil, Meletius, Cyril, Chrysostom etc, and yet no controversy broke out to indicate any other opinion. Some might have suggested Origen, but he was already condemned a heretic centuries before for holding odd opinions that even protestants would find objectionable.
2) If they were right in 754 then the whole Church was in heresy from 787 until now. This is unacceptable. You may as well be a Mormon and say it was in heresy from the 1st century.
3) I say "until now", and not "until Luther", because the iconoclasts would be no friend of protestants. They were against all images. No protestant movies about Jesus. No cartoon figures in your Good News bible. No photography, no movies, no art. Nothing at all.
4) However they WERE in favour of veneration of other holy things. "The Iconoclasts venerated the Cross, and made no bones about it" (Jaroslav Pelikan, The Spirit of Eastern Christendom (600-1700), Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974, p. 110). Again, no friends of protestants and the Church is STILL in heresy if they were right.
5) And they were in favour of seeking the intercession of the saints. They also anathematized all those who "shall not confess the holy ever-virgin Mary, truly and properly the Mother of God, to be higher than every creature whether visible or invisible, and does not with sincere faith seek her intercessions as one having confidence in her access to our God since she bare Him..." and they also anathematized anyone who "denies the profit of the invocation of the Saints..." (NPNF2, Vol. 14, p. 545f) If they were the true faith, where is the true church now?
6) The whole Church never accepted the council of 754. It was local to Byzantium. It did not include all the areas East which were now under Islam. Nor did it include the areas in the West and Latin areas. In fact it is instructive that the Church under the iconoclastic Islam was the staunch defender of icons.
7) Even in Byzantium, it was only an official policy, put in place by the Emperor. The common people, the monks and priests hid the icons and bided their time.
8) It was attended by no Patriarchs, who are representatives of the major jurisdictions of the Church. Not a single Patriarch, nor any of their representatives.
9) The whole iconoclast controversy in Byzantium started 3 years after Islam started an icon smashing exercise in Muslim controlled lands. It can't be a coincidence that iconoclasm in Christianity comes at the exact same time as a major heresy like Islam starts doing the same thing.
10) Everybody on both sides of the debate agrees that the council was a puppet of the Emperor. He apparently was either influenced by the Muslims or had some political motivation with regard to the Muslims.
11) The iconoclasts were heretics in other ways. They opposed monasticism, despite the fact that it had unquestionably been embraced by the Church since time immemorial. They were fond of robbing monks, taking their land, and forcing them to marry, eat meat, and attend public spectacles (and those who resisted often were the public spectacles).
12) Even Protestant historians are forced to concede that the holy men and women of the day were supporters of the veneration of Icons, and that the Iconoclasts were a rather immoral and ruthless lot.
"Much has been written, and truly written, of the superiority of the iconoclastic rulers; but when all has been said that can be, the fact still remains, that they were most of them but sorry Christians, and the justice of the Protestant Archbishop of Dublin's summing up of the matter will not be disputed by any impartial student. He says, "No one will deny that with rarest exceptions, all the religious earnestness, all which constituted the quickening power of a church, was ranged upon the other [i.e. the orthodox] side. Had the Iconoclasts triumphed, when their work showed itself at last in its true colours, it would have proved to be the triumph, not of faith in an invisible God, but of frivolous unbelief in an incarnate Saviour." (Trench. Mediaeval History, Chap. vii.) The Seven Ecumenical Councils of the Undivided Church, trans H. R. Percival, in NPNF2, ed. P. Schaff and H. Wace, (repr. Grand Rapids MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1955), XIV, p. 575, cf. 547f.
13) The iconoclasts, being opposed to all images without discernment, went against scripture's command to place images in the Temple.
14) The Quinisext council, which is understood by the Orthodox to be of the same authority as an ecumenical council, established a canon regarding what should be depicted in certain Icons, but hasn't the faintest hint of any controversy about Icons per se. Thus to give credence to the council of 754 would be to deny previous Tradition:
"In some of the paintings of the venerable Icons, a lamb is inscribed as being shown or pointed at by the Precursor's finger, which was taken to be a type of grace, suggesting beforehand through the law the true lamb to us Christ our God. Therefore, eagerly embracing the old types and shadows as symbols of the truth and preindications handed down to the Church, we prefer the grace, and accept it as the truth in fulfillment of the law. Since, therefore, that which is perfect even though it be but painted is imprinted in the faces of all, the Lamb who taketh away the sin of the world Christ our God, with respect to His human character, we decree that henceforth he shall be inscribed even in the Icons instead of the ancient lamb: through Him being enabled to comprehend the reason for the humiliation of the God Logos, and in memory of His life in the flesh and of His passion and of His soterial death being led by the hand, as it were, and of the redemption of the world which thence accrues" (Canon LXXXII of the Quinisext Council).
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
No Shortage of Reasons
The Council of 754
In 754 there was a council of more than 300 bishops in Constantinople who referred to themselves as the seventh ecumenical council and unanimously ("The holy synod cried out: Thus we all believe, we all are of the same mind. We have all with one voice and voluntarily subscribed. This is the faith of the Apostles.") affirmed among other things:
(8) If anyone ventures to represent the divine image (
karakthr ) of the Word after the Incarnation with material colours, let him be anathema!(9) If anyone ventures to represent in human figures, by means of material colours, by reason of the incarnation, the substance or person (ousia or hypostasis) of the Word, which cannot be depicted, and does not rather confess that even after the Incarnation he [i.e., the Word] cannot be depicted, let him be anathema!
You clearly accept the testimony of a later council (which also called itself "the seventh ecumenical council") that held rather differently with respect to at least these two items.
We've already established the relative paucity of early priests and doctors affirming the use of icons in worship (you could only identify a small handful of alleged teachers of the doctrine, while you acknowledge that there were dozens of doctors and thousands upon thousands of priests). Now we've established a purported ecumenical and not Roman Catholic or Protestant council of bishops meeting in large numbers in the historic seat of "Orthodoxy" and denying a doctrine that has massive implications for the worship practice of virtually all Roman Catholics and Orthodox churches and congregants around the world.
How do you know that those 300 ancient bishops were all wrong and another group of bishops in the next generation were right: do you apply Vincent's Canon or some other test?
-Turretinfan
Mockery of Spirit's Testimony a Red Herring
O: “Francis, your consistent approach thus far has been that the Holy Spirit witnesses to individuals what God's word is.”
It is gratifying to see my consistency on the issue recognized.
O: “You were given the opportunity to provide something more objective, but you quite reasonably recognised that whether a book is God-breathed is not the kind of question that lends itself to say, historical investigation.”
Actually, I provided a number of objective considerations. Perhaps they were overlooked:
Sometimes the testimony is explicit.
For example, sometimes Scriptures attest to their own Scripture status:
1 Corinthians 14:37 If any man think himself to be a prophet, or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things that I write unto you are the commandments of the Lord.
Or to the Scripture status of other Scriptures:
Nehemiah 8:14 And they found written in the law which the LORD had commanded by Moses, that the children of
The testimony is self-consistent, for it has a single author: God.
The testimony has been providentially preserved.
O: “Thus you didn't have any kind of real argument why Esther or the Johannine epistles are God-breathed, or 1 Clement is not God-breathed beyond the witness of the Spirit.”
Actually, the reason for the presentation being short was “Orthodox” own request that: “Obviously we don't want a long essay, but just the brief facts on how you know they are scripture.” Thus, the question was for me to explain how I know, not to try to prove the authenticity of the canonical books and the non-authenticity of the non-canonical book.
Any proof would have to start from some common epistemological common ground. Unfortunately, however, “Orthodox” is apparently unwilling to consider the testimony of the Spirit as a valid epistemology. Accordingly, “Orthodox” is left with selecting among various non-revelatory epistemologies. The form of the contentious assertion that the present author did not provide “any kind of real argument” suggests the “Orthodox” would like to adopt some form of empiricism. On the other hand, “Orthodox” comment above that: “but you quite reasonably recognised that whether a book is God-breathed is not the kind of question that lends itself to say, historical investigation,” suggests that “Orthodox” recognizes that empiricism cannot provide answers, because the Spirit is supernatural, and empiricism is not equipped to deal with the supernatural.
Thus, of course, the previous presentation was not an “argument” aimed at “proof” of the canonical status of Esther and non-canonical status of 1 Clement.
With regard to the presentations above, Esther is self-consistent with the other Scriptures, as are 1st-3rd John. Esther and 1st-3rd John were providentially preserved, 1 Clement was not (whether or not 1 Clement is self-consistent with Scripture). Furthermore, correcting the numerous factual errors in the citation of an extraordinarily questionable source like any of the Anchor publications would require a treatise.
But all such disputations miss the point. Whether the investigation is over a book of the whole or the whole book, the question of whether the book is to be received is a question of faith, not a question of evidentiary proof.
O: “Orthodox [sic] on the other hand would say that there is an objectively discoverable reality of where God's people are.”
This assertion is somewhat ambiguous. We know the people of God by their fruits, but even true believers stumble, and God alone knows the heart. Whether people are elect or not is an objective reality, and it is discoverable. And, of course, determine WHO God’s people are is arguably a predicate to discovering WHERE God’s people are. We could also point out that God’s people will be in the churches of God, but to judge a church without reference to its members would be an odd sort of investigation. The term “objectively discoverable” makes little sense. Subjects discover objects. That something is an objective reality may be discoverable, but it is discoverable subjectively, because it is subjects that do discovering.
Of course, perhaps by “objectively” “Orthodox” just means empirically. As noted above, however, while we can try (and should try) to judge empirically, only God knows the heart. There are certainly definable attributes of true churches, but those attributes are few not many.
O: “God gives his revelation to his people.”
Indeed he does, but not only to them. The gospel is preached everywhere and to everyone.
O: “His people preserve it.”
Some do, some don’t, and some preserve it better than others. Scripture has been preserved, but not all revelation ever given has been preserved. Furthermore, sometimes those who are not God’s people preserve God’s word.
O: “Thus where his Word is, is objectively stated by where his people are, which is an historical, continuous, objectively tracable [sic] entity.”
This, of course, does not follow for several reasons. First, where God’s people are is a location, not an “entity.” Second, God’s people are everywhere, throughout the whole world. Third, the Word must be known before the people who believe the Word can be identified as the people of God using the Biblical criteria.
There is another option: trust an entity, and then take the entity’s word for it that what they say God’s word is, is. This is how one can be led into Mormonism or Islam, to take two examples. Their radical, rapid departure from Scripture is less obvious than the gradual departure from Scripture in Orthodoxy and Catholicism. Nevertheless, the “trust the institution” mindset is the same.
O: “You on the other hand say that God gave his revelation, but who might be preserving it cannot be stated as a prior principle.”
The Holy Spirit preserves the Scriptures providentially: sometimes by Christians, sometimes by infidels. We find heretics preserving Scriptures (with some attempting to manipulate Scriptures) as well as orthodox Christians preserving Scripture. Even with some deliberate mistranslations, the New World Translation (of the so-called Jehovah’s Witnesses) generally preserves the Scriptures, and the Mormons (though they add unreasonably marginal notes and extraneous, uninspired works) preserve Scriptures as well.
O: “You hope or assume that God has preserved it, hopefully somewhere reasonably accessable to you, but where one might look to find its authoritative form, one can't say.”
I don’t have to hope or assume those things. I know that God has preserved it, because I have heard it and read it. That’s how preaching works. If I were an heathen informed only by the light of nature, I might have that hope that God has revealed himself in written form. As a Christian who has believed the preached Word, I don’t have that problem.
O: “You just have to look, and wait for the Holy Spirit to inform whenever and whereever you happen to find it.”
Actually, no, God sends preachers who preach the gospel. That’s how I heard the Word, and that’s how most Christians have heard the Word. In some, the Holy Spirit persuades us that it is the Word of God, and not just the fables of men.
O: “This means you've cut yourself off from any way of knowing what God's word is that is rooted in space/time and the physical universe.”
Now, this seems to swing back to empiricism. Plenty more could be written on this topic, but empiricism is inherently fruitless. Facts require interpretation: interpretation requires presuppositions. Empiricisms usual presupposition (naturalism) would prevent any demonstration of what God’s word is, because God’s word is a supernatural phenomenon.
O: “Your first principle is what the Spirit witnesses to you, as an individual.”
Everyone is an individual, and everyone’s epistemology is individual or nonsensical. The question “How do you know?” is answered individually. On the other hand, I’m not the only one who uses the epistemology that I do.
O: “Questions:”
It’s worth pointing out that this presentation of numerous questions seems to abuse the alternating question format, but surely no abuse was intended. Hopefully with this nudge, we can return to the alternating question format.
O: “1) What does this witnessing feel like?”
It feels like persuasion, conviction of fact. Asking someone to describe a feeling is a challenging task (ask yourself how persuasion or conviction of fact feels, and you’ll see what I mean). Asking someone to describe the operation of the Spirit is asking for trouble. As Jesus put it:
John 3:8 The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.
The action of the Spirit can be hard to describe, but the result is enormous and real.
O: “2) How do you know the feeling from (1) is the Holy Spirit and not your corrupt heart, a demon or other phenomenon?”
By faith.
O: “3) How does it differ to Mormon burning in the bosom (other than presumably yours is real and theirs isn't), and how do you know it differs? How does it differ to the Islamic idea that you read the book and it is obvious that there is no book ever written like the Koran?”
I’d hate to suggest that I’m an expert in either Mormon or Muslim views. There are many imitations, but only one God. Only the grace of God, and the operation of the Holy Spirit prevents me from being deluded like a Muslim or Mormon.
O: “4) Isn't the idea that the Spirit witnesses to every Christian a 66 book canon, objectively and empirically a lot of nonsense, given the number of better Christians than you or I who have held a smaller or larger canon?”
Obviously it is not “a lot of nonsense.” What makes it seem like nonsense is confusing the details with the big picture. Some things are more clear and some things are less clear. The canonicity of some books is more clear than others, not because a different spirit testifies to each, but because the Spirit testifies more clearly in some “Thus saith the Lord” and less clearly in others.
O: “5) How can you guard against a false witness of what the Spirit testifies to, given there have been so many false claims?”
Scripture provides the answer:
1 John 4:1 Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.
It is essential to Christianity that we believe the preached Gospel, but faith in the true gospel is not the result of human achievement. The Holy Spirit regenerates man, opening his eyes to knowledge of the truth, so that he can see that God has revealed Himself in Scripture.
O: “6) How do you explain someone like John Chrysostom, who memorised the scriptures (at least his canon of scripture) from Genesis on forward, who tirelessly dedicated himself to the Church and to God, who wrote a commentary on nearly the whole bible, and yet he held to the shorter New Testament canon of the Syrians, despite the fact he was aware of the other books? Didn't the Spirit witness to him?”
The answers above should suffice. I would not take for granted the various accounts of Chrysostom, and we don’t really have the space to get into all the details of his life story here. Whatever the answer to the first question, the second question can modified to “Didn’t the Church witness to him?” or “Didn’t empiricism witness to him?” or whatever explanation one wishes to give for the way in which we come to know the canon. Or, if you believe Chrysostom got it right, then simply apply the same question to some other godly man who erred in thinking something was Scripture that was not, or thought something wasn’t Scripture that was. In other words, the examples prove nothing except that Christians have differed.
O: “7) How come the Spirit witnesses a 66 long list to every Christian, but he doesn't witness the 5 points of Calvinism, the correct understanding of infant/believer baptism, the correct understanding of the eucharist, or any of many more significant points? Isn't your theory rather arbitrary?”
The Spirit does testify to those truths. The primary way the Spirit does so is through Scripture, but again: some things more clearly and some things less clearly.
O: “8) Gnosticism has been defined as religious groups that believe in "an inferior material world, one needs gnosis, or esoteric spiritual knowledge available only to a learned elite." Isn't this yet more evidence (as if we needed any more) that protestants are gnostics, abandoning the idea that God provides all knowledge through revelation in the material world, whereas you believe in esoteric internal revelation?”
Gnosticism is the name of an early heresy. It has much more in common with a church predominated by “mystery” and which claims to have knowledge unavailable to the outside world. Sola Scriptura has a rather opposite claim: the important things are plain in Scripture for all to see: the Gospel is preached everywhere, and God’s word is disseminated and explained as much as possible to outsiders.
On the other hand, the truth of the Gospel is only recognized as truth and received with joy by those whom the Spirit of God prepares. It’s not a question of esoteric internal revelation of secret knowledge: it’s an issue of the Spirit enlightening men’s eyes, as Scripture says.
O: “9) If the Spirit witnesses that 14 verses of 3 John is scripture, what does that tell us about our approach to Mark 16:9-20 and John 7:53-8:11, which are a similar size? Is it scripture if I believe the Spirit tells me it is scripture? Is that more than enough reason? When protestants come to discuss these passages, why is "what the Spirit witnesses", never on the agenda? What does the existance of Mark 16:9-20 in virtually every manuscript tell us about the Spirit's witness, and what does a consensus that is building in protestantism to exclude this passage on grounds other than the Spirit's witness tell us about what protestants really believe?”
The answer to (4) should resolve the five questions posed here. The God-breathed status of the Gospels of Mark and John are clearly revealed. The God-breathed status of particular words, phrases, or passages is less clearly revealed. Scripture’s scripture-status is an objective reality. Whether we recognize the truth of that reality is a different (though important) question.
We recognize that God uses means to preserve the Scriptures. Textual criticism is one of the tools that the Spirit uses to persuade us of the originality of the readings in those places. As a rule of thumb, the bigger the passage is the easier it is to apply textual criticism to determine whether the passage (in general) is original or not.
The Spirit could have left us without a reason for believing that the Scripture is Scripture. However, the Spirit did not do so.
The reason that “what the Spirit witnesses” is not on the agenda is that it is not a transitive measure.
O: “10) Does this mean you can't enforce church discipline if the relevant passage is denied by the person in question to be scripture? So if for example, someone agrees with the Syrian church or is sympathetic to the disparaging things that Martin Luther said about Revelation, are they entitled to just say in the Church "that doesn't apply to me, leave me alone"? Or conversely, can a leader as an individual decide that an extra book is scripture and enforce discipline on its basis? If not, what principle or authority stands in the way?”
As noted above, Scripture is an objective reality: if it is God-breathed it is Scripture. Persuasion of the truth of Scripture is a subjective reality. It appears that a confusion between those two things is the basis of this question. You have to work with what you have.
O: “11) Doesn't your epistemology make this entire debate futile? You have your "truth" that you think the Spirit witnesses to you, and I have my truth that I think the Spirit witnesses to the Church and to me, and that's really the end of the discussion?”
I don’t have to “think” that the Spirit testifies to Scripture: I can and do know it. That is not open for debate, and debate on that would be futile if the arguer’s object were to persuade me to deny a truth that I know. It might be helpful for such a person to re-read the resolution, which takes for granted that I know what the Bible is.
Furthermore, Orthodox himself does not deny that the Spirit witnesses to the Scripture, he simply (apparently) disagrees with me as to how the Spirit does so. In other words, the epistemological issue is a red herring. The canon of Scripture is a non-issue in the debate, and has been a non-issue since the resolution. The Bible may have fuzzy edges (and Orthodox may spend a lot of time, space, and questions on the fuzz) but everyone reading this has a pretty clear concept generally of what the Bible is, whether or not they can prove that the Bible is what they think it is.
We could spend our time demonstrating the absurdity of Orthodox’s attack: but it demonstrates its own absurdity. He attacks on issues where we agree! Furthermore, he attacks on issues that are not germane to the debate. His attack on how we know the Bible is a moot issue. We do know the Bible, and he knows that we know the Bible, and everyone in the world knows that we know the Bible.
It doesn’t really matter whether we know it by the way that the present author has explained it, or by stealing from the “Orthodox” monasteries. How we came by it is not the issue under debate it. We have it, and we can use and do use it: and using Scriptures rather than man’s tradition is a more workable rule of faith.
O: “12) Since Luther is on record as saying that Revelation is "neither apostolic nor prophetic" and stated that "Christ is neither taught nor known in it", and since you are on record as saying that the Holy Spirit dictates to Christians the 66 book canon, what does this say about Luther being a Christian, or alternatively, what does it say about your theory?”
It says nothing either way, as can be seen from the answers to (4) and (9) above.
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Burning in the Bosom
Francis, your consistent approach thus far has been that the Holy Spirit witnesses to individuals what God's word is. You were given the opportunity to provide something more objective, but you quite reasonably recognised that whether a book is God-breathed is not the kind of question that lends itself to say, historical investigation. Thus you didn't have any kind of real argument why Esther or the Johannine epistles are God-breathed, or 1 Clement is not God-breathed beyond the witness of the Spirit.
Orthodox on the other hand would say that there is an objectively discoverable reality of where God's people are. God gives his revelation to his people. His people preserve it. Thus where his Word is, is objectively stated by where his people are, which is an historical, continuous, objectively tracable entity. You on the other hand say that God gave his revelation, but who might be preserving it cannot be stated as a prior principle. You hope or assume that God has preserved it, hopefully somewhere reasonably accessable to you, but where one might look to find its authoritative form, one can't say. You just have to look, and wait for the Holy Spirit to inform whenever and whereever you happen to find it.
This means you've cut yourself off from any way of knowing what God's word is that is rooted in space/time and the physical universe. Your first principle is what the Spirit witnesses to you, as an individual.
Questions:
1) What does this witnessing feel like?
2) How do you know the feeling from (1) is the Holy Spirit and not your corrupt heart, a demon or other phenomenon?
3) How does it differ to Mormon burning in the bosom (other than presumably yours is real and theirs isn't), and how do you know it differs? How does it differ to the Islamic idea that you read the book and it is obvious that there is no book ever written like the Koran?
4) Isn't the idea that the Spirit witnesses to every Christian a 66 book canon, objectively and empirically a lot of nonsense, given the number of better Christians than you or I who have held a smaller or larger canon?
5) How can you guard against a false witness of what the Spirit testifies to, given there have been so many false claims?
6) How do you explain someone like John Chrysostom, who memorised the scriptures (at least his canon of scripture) from Genesis on forward, who tirelessly dedicated himself to the Church and to God, who wrote a commentary on nearly the whole bible, and yet he held to the shorter New Testament canon of the Syrians, despite the fact he was aware of the other books? Didn't the Spirit witness to him?
7) How come the Spirit witnesses a 66 long list to every Christian, but he doesn't witness the 5 points of Calvinism, the correct understanding of infant/believer baptism, the correct understanding of the eucharist, or any of many more significant points? Isn't your theory rather arbitrary?
8) Gnosticism has been defined as religious groups that believe in "an inferior material world, one needs gnosis, or esoteric spiritual knowledge available only to a learned elite." Isn't this yet more evidence (as if we needed any more) that protestants are gnostics, abandoning the idea that God provides all knowledge through revelation in the material world, whereas you believe in esoteric internal revelation?
9) If the Spirit witnesses that 14 verses of 3 John is scripture, what does that tell us about our approach to Mark 16:9-20 and John 7:53-8:11, which are a similar size? Is it scripture if I believe the Spirit tells me it is scripture? Is that more than enough reason? When protestants come to discuss these passages, why is "what the Spirit witnesses", never on the agenda? What does the existance of Mark 16:9-20 in virtually every manuscript tell us about the Spirit's witness, and what does a consensus that is building in protestantism to exclude this passage on grounds other than the Spirit's witness tell us about what protestants really believe?
10) Does this mean you can't enforce church discipline if the relevant passage is denied by the person in question to be scripture? So if for example, someone agrees with the Syrian church or is sympathetic to the disparaging things that Martin Luther said about Revelation, are they entitled to just say in the Church "that doesn't apply to me, leave me alone"? Or conversely, can a leader as an individual decide that an extra book is scripture and enforce discipline on its basis? If not, what principle or authority stands in the way?
11) Doesn't your epistemology make this entire debate futile? You have your "truth" that you think the Spirit witnesses to you, and I have my truth that I think the Spirit witnesses to the Church and to me, and that's really the end of the discussion?
12) Since Luther is on record as saying that Revelation is "neither apostolic nor prophetic" and stated that "Christ is neither taught nor known in it", and since you are on record as saying that the Holy Spirit dictates to Christians the 66 book canon, what does this say about Luther being a Christian, or alternatively, what does it say about your theory?
We Know What the Church Believes
Well one thing I have never heard Orthodoxy accused of before is being lowest common denominator Christianity!
I'm not quite sure what you mean by "antiquity". Are you under the false impression that priests, fathers and doctors only existed in antiquity? I can only assume that you are referring to the era of St Vincent himself.
Vincent, being in the Latin church referred to "doctors", which in Latin means teachers, which in Vincent's time might apply to those who would be referred to today as the early church fathers which I suppose number in the dozens. The number of priests I suppose would number in the thousands if not tens of thousands.
I suppose what you are trying to work yourself up to is challenging the idea that we can know what the Church believed, or indeed believes, which has been your constant theme up to this point. But that's about as credible as if I were to say that nobody can say what Presbyterians believe, because while we have some writings and confessions of some prominent presbyterians, nobody has actually done a survey of Presbyterians. Or it would be as credible as saying that nobody can discuss the canon of scripture in the church in a particular time period, because there is nobody who took a survey. Or it would be as credible as saying we can't be sure the apostles believed Jesus was raised from the dead, because we don't have a written record of a survey of the opinion of all twelve apostles.
The Church has more extensive records than any other ancient continuously existing organization on earth. If your aim is try and insert doubt and obfuscation into issues that three hundred million Orthodox Christians are clear about, I would say you are wasting your time. You may as well doubt everything we know about ancient history.
Friday, October 19, 2007
How Many Fathers Are There?
Orthodox previously stated: "Firstly, you can't use the Vincentian canon against itself. The Vincentian canon assumes that there is a catholic church." This seemed strange, since of course the maxim "The Bible says it," likewise assumes that there is a Bible, a point that Orthodox seems unwilling to acknowledge; for if he acknowledged it, then the entire dispute over the canon of the Bible would be revealed to be extraneous.
So, to avoid the same retort this question, let this question be clear. This question that is about to be asked is not a question that disputes the assumption of the Vincentian canon, namely that there is a catholic church, instead this is a question about the workability of that assumption.
Recall that Vincent allegedly said:
This rule we shall observe if we follow universality, antiquity, consent. We shall follow universality if we confess that one faith to be true, which the whole Church throughout the world confesses; antiquity, if we in no wise depart from those interpretations which it is manifest were notoriously held by our holy ancestors and fathers; consent, in like manner, if in antiquity itself we adhere to the consentient definitions and determinations of all, or at the least of almost all priests and doctors.What this looks like is the "lowest common denominator."
We need to know what the "whole Church throughout the world confess[]" is. To know that, we must know who is in and who is out of the church. Orthodox seems to have made clear his position:
... it doesn't matter what protestants think, nor does it matter, at least since the schism, what Roman Catholics think, because neither of those groups are in the Church, nor is their religion, in the strictest sense, the Christian religion in the fullest sense, so they can't be considered to be "in Christianity".For now we can leave aside this particular insult. Orthodox means that only the "Orthodox Church" counts in the analysis.
But there is still a problem, even if we remove the millions of Catholics and Protestants from the Church, because we still have to deal with the pre-schism differences of belief.
The next item is that it is "manifest" that the doctrines were "notoriously" held "by our holy ancestors and fathers." Notice the strong language, these are not doctrines that might probably have been held, but doctrines that were clearly and openly held by the group of "our holy ancestors and fathers." Again, this leads us to the same identity question as before, but we can safely say for now that Orthodox would interpret this to mean "Orthodox ancestors and fathers" and not just anybody who was born before we were and called himself a Christian.
Finally, the last item is that within antiquity, we should adhere to the "consentient definitions and determinations of all, or at the least of almost all priests and doctors." Again, we can safely infer that the gnostics are not on the list of priests and doctors. Nevertheless, here's the question. The one question that this entire post has been leading up to:
There's one puzzle piece missing.
How many such ("catholic Christian" within whatever sense Vincent would have meant by that, and you don't need to reexplain that point) priests and doctors were there in antiquity?
The answer looked for here is a rough estimate:
a) 50
b) 100
c) 500
d) 1000
e) 5000
f) 10,000
g) 50,000
h) More than 50,000
i) Fewer than 50
j) No clue - not even a rough estimate
k) Some other rough estimate (please specify the other rough estimate)
We don't need you necessarily to name them, but simply to tell us roughly how many there were.
-Turretinfan
Loaded Questions Can Lead to Confusing Answers
O: “Francis, there was a great deal of obfuscation in your last answer.”
Perhaps the lack of clarity in the answer is partly due to the form of the question. It seems some of these questions are meant one way and understood another. In order to help clarify this answer, comments are interspersed below.
O: “You seemed to be saying that a Christian "must" leave a church if the Gospel is at stake (you didn't tell us how you understand that term), but you still seemed to be saying it was more than acceptable to leave for lots of other doctrinal issues.”
One wonders what “more than acceptable” means. In some cases it may be wise to leave, even when leaving is not absolutely mandated. Further, we do not have to limit these issues to doctrinal issues. If a sound church springs up nearer one’s home, perhaps it would be wise to transfer one’s membership only for geographic reasons.
And of course, there is a real difference between switching between denominations, between congregations of a single denomination, and between non-denominational congregations on the one hand, and starting one’s own denomination/congregation on the other hand. Likewise, there is a real difference between switching between “sister” congregations/denominations, switching between “acceptable” congregations/denominations, and switching between “unacceptable” congregations/denominations.
Of course, what “sister” “acceptable” and “unacceptable” mean is somewhat loose. The idea, however, is that if someone changes congregations with the approval (or at least without the disapproval) of their elders, the move can hardly be considered “schismatic.”
The question blurred those differences, and consequently, it was not only difficult to formulate an answer, the answer was probably not that useful.
Ultimately, the important question for non-elders is congregational affiliation. For elders, the question is a bit different, but it seems reasonable to infer that “Orthodox”’s question was not related to the decisions that elders must make.
O: “Of course, the issue is not if "one elder" teaches it, the question pertains to Orthodoxy where the whole church teaches it.”
In “Orthodoxy,” the “whole church” rarely has a voice to “teach” anything. This is part of the loading of the questions. I cannot go to a local Orthodox church (building) and hear “Orthodoxy” giving the homilies. It’s a serious problem with “Orthodox” tradition, that it is hard to define what is “Orthodoxy” and what is not.
Furthermore, as noted above, the issue for non-elders is the teachings of their elders. Elders have authority, and the non-elders are to submit to that authority. That’s why the teaching of one elder can be important, because the teachings of the elders are the teachings of the church, since the church teaches through her elders.
O: “To try and nail you down, let's take some specific churches.”
It seems that this is a bit at odds with the foregoing. Specific churches are not “Orthodoxy” and each of the four churches Orthodox has picked predate “Orthodoxy” as a distinguishable sect of Christianity. Furthermore, Augustine of Hippo is not necessarily viewed as “Orthodox” by many in modern “Orthodoxy.”
O: “Let's take churches of the Three Hierarchs, Basil the Great's church of Caesarea, Gregory the Theologian's church of Nazianzus, and John Chrysostom's church of Antioch or Constantinople, as well as the West's favourite son, Augustine's church in Hippo.”
Augustine is certainly a favorite among Reformed Churches.
O: “Which of these church leaders taught the gospel? Which of them didn't teach the gospel?”
I’m familiar enough with Augustine to say with great confidence that he surely did preach the gospel. I’m not sufficiently familiar with Basil the Great’s or Gregory the Theologian’s writings to know one way or the other. I suspect that they did preach the gospel, even though they made many errors of doctrine. John Chrysostom’s legacy is muddied by time and various strains of thought all attributed to him, but not necessarily all his own. Perhaps the same is true of Basil the Great and Gregory the Theologian, and even Augustine. In any event, I suspect he did preach the gospel, though some writings attributed to him may be inconsistent with that conclusion.
O: “Is Eastern Orthodoxy's teachings different to what they taught as pertains to the Gospel? (document your answer if in the negative).”
“Eastern Orthodoxy” has not much to say about the Gospel itself in the portions of its “tradition” that are clearly identifiable. That’s one of the problems of “it is a tradition, seek no farther,” namely that it is often hard to identify what is part of the tradition, and what is not.
In theory, Eastern Orthodoxy teaches that the Scriptures are true, and consequently teaches the Gospel. While it is clear that some modern Eastern Orthodox teachers do not preach the gospel, it’s not really fair (in this writer’s view) to assume that they are representative. In general, this writer has not come across any clear expositions of the gospel by modern Eastern Orthodox writers. That is not to say that such do not exist.
This probably will seem obfuscatory or at least frustrating, because doubtless “Orthodox” has some concept that he believes is the gospel of Orthodoxy.
O: “And finally, given you have given "the gospel" as the only certain criteria for leaving a church, is there any need to leave the Orthodox Church?”
There is certainly wisdom in leaving churches associated with the Ecumenical Patriarch. Furthermore, it is hard to imagine that a Christian who experienced ordinary spiritual maturity would not some come into conflict with his local bishop (or if he were himself a bishop, with his local metropolitan, etc.) and be forced to choose between the Word of God and the traditions of men. Nevertheless, it is conceivable that a Christian could remain in the Orthodox Church, seeking her reformation.
Some clarification should be made, though. Abandonment of the Gospel is a reason to leave. Nevertheless, getting kicked out by the elders is another reason to leave. That is the reason that Chrysostom left, twice. I don’t mean to suggest that Chrysostom was wrong, or that the church that excommunicated him was right. I just mean to note that excommunication is another mechanism that may force a person out of a church. Excommunication was also the mechanism for the so-called Great Schism as well as the mechanism whereby many of the men of the Reformation left.
That said, the present author is unwilling to make the assertion that the Orthodox Church is apostate and irreformable, though many of her bishops would make the latter assertion, as Orthodox has done. Might it be wise to leave a church full of idolatry and superstition when there are other churches without those detractions? Certainly.
But is the Gospel the official doctrine of “Orthodoxy”? Who knows. There does not seem to be anything, for example, stopping Pelagians from teaching their doctrine, which is contrary to the Gospel, within the “Orthodox” church, as the “Orthodox” church does not accept the Council of Orange as a binding authority.
Ultimately, part of the problem in answering the question posed here is that "Orthodoxy" like Catholicism does not like to present itself as a denomination, but as the one true church. Of course, no Christian is justified in leaving the one true church, but the one true church is not defined politically, but spiritually.
-Turretinfan
Ecclesiology Gone Rotten
Francis, there was a great deal of obfuscation in your last answer. You seemed to be saying that a Christian "must" leave a church if the Gospel is at stake (you didn't tell us how you understand that term), but you still seemed to be saying it was more than acceptable to leave for lots of other doctrinal issues. Of course, the issue is not if "one elder" teaches it, the question pertains to Orthodoxy where the whole church teaches it.
To try and nail you down, let's take some specific churches. Let's take churches of the Three Hierarchs, Basil the Great's church of Caesarea, Gregory the Theologian's church of Nazianzus, and John Chrysostom's church of Antioch or Constantinople, as well as the West's favourite son, Augustine's church in Hippo.
Which of these church leaders taught the gospel? Which of them didn't teach the gospel? Is Eastern Orthodoxy's teachings different to what they taught as pertains to the Gospel? (document your answer if in the negative).
And finally, given you have given "the gospel" as the only certain criteria for leaving a church, is there any need to leave the Orthodox Church?
